EXHIBIT LET US CELEBRATE WHILE YOUTH LINGERS AND IDEAS FLOW A R C H I V E S 1915–2015
NOVEMBER 14
TO DECEMBER 20 2015
THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1 Gray Center Lab, Midway Studios 929 East 60th Street —Archival materials, 1915–2015. E 57th St e e ve ve
—Auder, Michel. Endless Column, 2011. Av Av A y s
—Fish, Julia. Key, 1981. wn A rove ersit S Elli iv odla —Gerber, Gaylen. Backdrop/Let Us Celebrate While Youth e G ag S Un Lingers and Ideas Flow: Archives 1915–2015, 2015. S Wo Cott S —Graham, Rodney. School of Velocity and Parsifal University of Chicago notebook sketches, 1995. 4 Main Quad
—Ito, Miyoko. Island in the Sun, 1978. 3 —Pope.L, William. Well, 2015. E 59th St 2 —Sone, Yutaka. Untitled (Snowballs), 2006. —Grid section, 1967–2014. Midway Plaisance
2 Wieboldt Hall, Room 205 Midway Plaisance
1050 East 59th Street E 60th St —Archival materials, 1930–1938. —Gonzalez-Torres, Felix. “Untitled” (Revenge), 1991. 1 Logan Center —Mirra, Helen. Schlafbau, 1995. for the Arts 3 Goodspeed Hall, Room 106 1010 East 59th Street —Archival materials, 1938–1979. —Gonzalez-Torres, Felix. “Untitled” (Revenge), 1991. 4 The Renaissance Society Cobb Hall, Fourth Floor Open hours 5811 South Ellis Avenue Tuesday–Friday, 10am–5pm —Detail of Raymond Pettibon wall mural, 1998. Saturday–Sunday, 12–5pm —Gonzalez-Torres, Felix. “Untitled” (Revenge), 1991. Closed November 26–27, 2015 Introduction I want to extend a warm thanks to curator Jordan Stein who organized this project with thoughtfulness and care. In June of 1915, eleven University of Chicago faculty We are greatly appreciative to the participating artists members invited their colleagues to join them for a and lenders for their generosity; to the Richard and Mary L. meeting to explore the possibility of forming “a society to Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, the Department of stimulate the love of the beautiful, and to enrich the life Romance Language and Literature, and the Department of the community through the cultivation of the arts.” of Music for their hospitality; and to the University of And here we are, 100 years later—an institution with an Chicago, whose community of inquiry we are honored to expanded mission, perhaps, but one that shares the same be part of. belief in the power of art and artists to address the present moment. A nimble, non-collecting museum, we do this —Solveig Øvstebø, Executive Director and Chief Curator now as we always have done, through a focused program of exhibitions, lectures, concerts, readings, and publications.
As we approached this milestone, we wanted to refresh our institutional memory. This archive presentation was therefore conceived as crucial component of the Centennial program, not just as a celebration (which it certainly is!) but also as a way for us to understand who we are and how we arrived at this point. Surveying a century of activity has been a revealing process, enriching our understanding of well-known histories and illuminating moments and movements that are less familiar. It has also been truly inspiring to remind ourselves of what a unique and special place the Renaissance Society has been and continues to be. Let Us Celebrate While Youth Lingers An archive is a collection of artifacts unique to an and Ideas Flow: Archives 1915–2015 institution, group of people, place, or idea—sometimes all at once—nominated for safekeeping under an overarching is an exhibition presented by the organizational system or structure. Archives look inward Renaissance Society at the University and outward, reflecting both implicated histories and the of Chicago to mark the occasion of its self-reflexive circumstances of their own creation. In other words, archives speak not only to what’s kept, but the Centennial. Staged throughout multiple desire to keep. The Renaissance Society’s status as a “non- locations, it is comprised of historical collecting” art museum serves to confirm the archive as its materials and a selection of artworks. only permanent collection.
This presentation features primary source materials from the last century, including invitations, announcements, news clippings, founding documents, sketches, snapshots, title cards, postcards, letters, telegrams, faxes, loan forms, posters, theses, schematics, work orders, inventory lists, book prototypes, and various other particular miscellany. While an archive suggests totality, an exhibition allows for a more exacting approach. A workable number of items have been chosen from the tens of thousands available on account of their art historical import, bureaucratic fidelity, riotous idealism, and well-balanced chronology. This constellation is complemented by a number of artworks from the recent past, either shown in the museum or made by previously exhibiting artists, selected for their connection to archival themes, such as the passage of time, the organization of information, and the construction of context. The artworks on display do not constitute made tangible in countless ways through a sustained a “group exhibition,” but rather serve as punctuation for commitment to artists and their ideas, is perhaps the most the historical objects presented. Let us Celebrate… features critical ingredient in the tangle of this particular history. works by Michel Auder, Julia Fish, Gaylen Gerber, Let Us Celebrate While Youth Lingers and Ideas Flow Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Rodney Graham, Miyoko Ito, is named for a 1975 sculpture by artist Ree Morton Helen Mirra, William Pope.L, and Yutaka Sone. that was presented at the Renaissance Society in 1981. Exhibition sites include Midway Studios, the earliest The large, wall-mounted assemblage pictured on the back home for the visual arts on campus; two former locations of this booklet, however, is not featured in this exhibition. of the Renaissance Society, Wieboldt Hall (1930–38) Former Executive Director Susanne Ghez had hoped and Goodspeed Hall (1938–79); and the hallway and to present a solo exhibition of new work by Morton in office of the museum’s current site. (The institution, in the late 1970s, but the artist died tragically and the show fact, has itinerant roots, holding exhibitions and events never happened. Several years later, the New Museum in a half dozen campus locations for its first 15 years.) mounted a Morton retrospective and Ghez brought the show to Chicago. The title reference stands not just for the Let us Celebrate… proposes that history unevenly personal, exultant, and unpretentious nature of Morton’s distributes the weight of the past across infinite documents work, but also for the urgency of the present as a conduit for and geographies, leaving no true primary source. As it all that has come and is yet to come. lingers, it changes, always changing. History's evidence nonetheless carries a significant charge that may be In addition to the artists and lenders, I’d like to thank activated as these traces encounter congruous conditions Renaissance Society Executive Director and Chief Curator of time and space. With this in mind, the exhibition Solveig Øvstebø for encouraging the extended research considers just how long the present lasts and how an that made this exhibition possible and for supporting its institution best reckons with the legacy of its actions multi-channel installation. and ideas. —Jordan Stein, exhibition curator Above all, Let Us Celebrate… intends to convey the relative autonomy under which the Renaissance Society has operated for the last one hundred years. Independence, VENUE G RAY CENTER LAB MIDWAY STUDIOS
929 EAST 60TH STREET The central location of the exhibition Michel Auder is the Gray Center Lab in historic Endless Column, 2011 Phone video to digital video HD, color and sound, 18:21 Midway Studios, the former working Courtesy of the artist space of celebrated sculptor Lorado Taft. Taft hosted early Renaissance Society members for a 1917 visit, and today his Retrospective 1969–2001 large wooden tables are used to present March 10–April 21, 2002 archival materials. The additional display The Renaissance Society’s retrospective exhibition of tables were built for the recent Wadada Auder’s work included a number of important video works Leo Smith exhibition at the Renaissance that prolifically document the artist’s life. Auder distills Society (October 11–29, 2015). countless hours of raw material—from far-flung travel to highly intimate domestic footage—into diaristic reflections on love, loss, madness, counterculture, While artworks are detailed on the and the ever-changing face of New York City. In place following pages, archival materials of bringing a specific work back to the Renaissance are labeled in their cases. A library Society, Let Us Celebrate… presents Endless Column, a more recent, encyclopedic, and mysteriously moving and bookstore are also available. video showing Auder’s computer screen as he clicks through the images on his hard drive one by one. The soundtrack for the video doubles as the soundtrack for this exhibition: repeated keyboard clicks glossing back and forth through time. Julia Fish Gaylen Gerber Key, 1981 Backdrop/Let Us Celebrate While Youth Lingers Cyanotype and Ideas Flow: Archives 1915–2015, 2015 13 ¾ × 12 ½ inches Background paper Courtesy of the artist Dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist
View: Selected Drawings and Paintings 1985–1995 Gaylen Gerber January 14–February 25, 1996 January 26–March 8, 1992
Although technically falling outside the chronology of Gerber’s 1992 Renaissance Society exhibition—25 gray Fish’s Renaissance Society survey show, Key was none- monochromatic genre paintings installed in a contiguous theless included in the exhibition as a pivotal piece in row on a temporary wall that spanned the width of the the life and work of the artist, a painter. The modest and gallery—denied access to the majority of the space. elegant cyanotype distills Fish’s interest in time and light This foreshadowed much of his work positioning to its core visible incarnation, opening the door to a career larger monochromatic surfaces as contextual support for spent slowly studying how things change. the art and activities surrounding it. For this exhibition, Gerber covers the west wall of the Gray Center Lab with a pleated gray paper Backdrop, folded to the proportions of a full figure, that grounds the entirety of the exhibition. Gerber’s work reveals the complexities of authorship and makes apparent the fundamental network of exchanges between artists, artworks, and their reception. Rodney Graham Miyoko Ito School of Velocity notebook sketch, 1995 Island in the Sun, 1978 Parsifal notebook sketch, 1995 Oil on canvas Pen on paper 38 × 33 inches 18 × 24 inches Courtesy of John Pittman Courtesy of the artist
School of Velocity, Parsifal A Review October 01–November 12, 1995 October 05–November 09, 1980
Graham exhibited two time-based musical installations in Island in the Sun is displayed on its own at the top 1995, School of Velocity and Parsifal. The former combined of the gallery stairwell. A Chicago artist with Japanese the piano exercise of the same name with Galileo’s roots, Ito’s idiosyncratic style—someplace between equation of the acceleration of falling objects to create a geometric abstraction and Imagistic landscape painting— piano piece that grows progressively slower. Based on a is not easily classifiable, and although treasured in Chicago, few bars of music from Wagner’s composition of the same was somewhat overlooked more broadly in her lifetime. name, the latter work is an opera that doesn’t end until This painting, now looking over the show, was featured the year 38,969,364,735. Graham made these sketches alongside 37 others in her 1980 Renaissance Society during a Chicago lecture to represent the mathematical exhibition, her first and only retrospective. She died in processes that determined the two works. 1983 at 65. William Pope.L Yutaka Sone Well, 2015 Untitled (Snowballs), 2006 Three glasses of water on three shelves Paper, stickers, and acrylic on cardboard Dimensions variable Dimensions variable Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist
Forlesen Forecast: Snow April 28–June 23, 2013 January 29–April 9, 2006
This version of Well is adapted from a piece shown in Sone’s solo exhibition was a mixed-media extravaganza Pope.L’s 2013 Renaissance Society exhibition, Forlesen. of painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, and a forest While the building blocks of the work remain the same— of nearly 100 pine trees. Alongside a series of astonishing shelves and glasses—the quantity and placement varies marble snowflake sculptures ranging from several inches with each installation. In 2013, the glasses were up- to a few feet in diameter sat the fragile and homebrewed right and filled with water. Today, they are precariously Untitled (Snowballs). Crumpled wads of paper sit in positioned on their sides, ready to roll. Can history be a custom cardboard box—a pathetically transcendent paused? From which well does it draw? And is it clear? reflection of the archive. Grid section, 1967–2014
VENUE WIEBOLDT HALL RM. 205 DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE Mathias Poledna LANGUAGES AND December 7, 2014–February 8, 2015 LITERATURES
A heavy white metal truss floated horizontally 10 feet above the floor of the Renaissance Society’s home in Cobb Hall from 1967 (12 years before the museum moved in) until late last year. Used for the stabilization and support of temporary walls and lighting, the grid was conspicuous in much of the museum’s photographic documentation, coming to define the peculiar architectural 1050 character of the gallery. Its demolition and removal EAST 59TH STREET by artist Mathias Poledna, realized in collaboration with the Renaissance Society, follows in a tradition of institutional critique explored here by artists such as Michael Asher and Joëlle Tuerlinckx and others whose work has engaged the structure directly, such as Katharina Grosse and Nora Schultz. Its removal reveals not only cathedral-like ceiling heights, but also THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY shifting relationships between artist, artwork, curator, AT THE UNIVERSITY OF and institution. A single, salvaged piece now hangs above CHICAGO the door of the Gray Center Lab. 1930–1938 Room 205 of Wieboldt Hall was the The Department of Romance Languages Renaissance Society’s first dedicated and Literatures offers programs exhibition space from 1930 to 1938. in French, Italian, and Hispanic/ It saw one of the first solo exhibitions of Luso-Brazilian literatures, as well as Alexander Calder's mobiles, works by Renaissance and Early Modern Studies. Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Isamu Noguchi, Georges Seurat, With special thanks to Larry Norman, Balian Woodcarvings, Musical Instruments Deborah Blumenthal, and Jennifer and Various Objects in Use in Ceremonies and Hurtarte. Daily Life of Native Africans, and more.
This site now hosts a video by Helen Mirra, one of three presentations of Felix Gonzales-Torres’s “Untitled” (Revenge), and a selection of historical materials related to the Renaissance Society. Felix Gonzalez-Torres “Untitled” (Revenge), 1991 Light blue candies individually wrapped in cellophane, endless supply Ideal weight: 325 lbs. Overall dimensions vary with installation Courtesy Barbara and Howard Morse, New York With special thanks to the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation
Traveling October 2–November 6, 1994
“Untitled” (Revenge) is made from light blue candies in Installed as a large rectangle of candy, the work was endless supply that are available for the public to take. the centerpiece of Gonzalez-Torres’s 1994 Renaissance For Let Us Celebrate… the piece appears across three Society exhibition, his first large-scale, touring sites, each in a different physical format, linking the institutional exhibition. The original candy distributor, Renaissance Society's “permanent” homes under an Peerless, was founded one year before the Renaissance extended common roof. Society in 1914. It closed in 2007. The uniqueness of the work lies with ownership, not presentation. This means that the exhibition does not present a trifurcation, but instead three unique instances of the same work: a generosity the piece allows for under its specific, yet open-ended parameters. As with much of Gonzalez-Torres’s work, “Untitled” (Revenge) sensitively provokes questions about the malleable nature of history, memory, meaning, security, originality, value, possession, presence, and exchange. Helen Mirra
Schlafbau, 1995, 14:30 VENUE Video GOODSPEED Courtesy of the artist and Video Data Bank HALL RM. 106 DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC Persona (group exhibition) March 10–April 21, 1996 Sky-wreck (solo exhibition) May 6–June 24, 2001
Taking its title from a poem by Paul Celan (translated as “sleeping den”), Schlafbau is the result of a script that reconfigures over two hundred lines of English subtitles borrowed from French, German, Russian, Italian, and Swedish films. Its disconcerting soliloquy on love and 1010 distance is quixotically attempted in a medley of original EAST 59TH STREET languages by an off-screen narrator. Schlafbau was presented in Persona, a group exhibition exploring identity as a set of distinguishing, not delimiting, characteristics in which one might lose rather than find one’s self.
THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1938–1979 The Renaissance Society occupied The space is home to one of three Room 108 of Goodspeed Hall from presentations of Felix Gonzales-Torres’s 1938 to 1979. Works by Marc Chagall, “Untitled” (Revenge) along with Eva Hesse, Diego Rivera, Robert a selection of historical materials related Smithson, and Lawrence Weiner were to the Renaissance Society. exhibited there, along with dozens of artist members exhibitions, Contemporary The Department of Music offers Indian Painting, Islamic Prayer Rugs, graduate degrees in Composition, and a 47th Anniversary Exhibition that Ethnomusicology, and Music History took place in the incorrect year due to and Theory and an undergraduate faulty record keeping. Two large galleries Bachelor of Arts degree in Music. separated by a narrow hallway have since been divided into a series of small piano With special thanks to Peter Gillette, practice rooms. While Room 108 is no Barbara Schubert, Anne Robertson, longer physically or numerically extant, and Laura Swierzbin. Room 106 has graciously been made available for this exhibition. Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Untitled” (Revenge), 1991 VENUE Light blue candies individually wrapped in cellophane, COBB endless supply Ideal weight: 325 lbs. HALL Overall dimensions vary with installation FOURTH FLOOR Courtesy Barbara and Howard Morse, New York With special thanks to the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation
“Untitled” (Revenge) covers the entire floor of the practice space. For more information, please see the Wieboldt Hall section.
5811 SOUTH ELLIS AVENUE
THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1979–PRESENT The Renaissance Society has Detail of Raymond Pettibon wall mural, 1998 occupied the north side of Cobb Hall’s fourth floor since 1979. During this time it has become widely known as a platform for critical experimentation in the still- developing field of “Contemporary” art. Raymond Pettibon That space, still active, is not the home September 13–November 08, 1998 for this exhibition. Pettibon’s monumental 1998 Renaissance Society exhibition featured over 600 drawings in the gallery Yet, steps beyond the museum’s front and one impulsively and exquisitely rendered mural in the doors, the partial removal of a wall at the hallway. Although the exhibition traveled to the Drawing Center in New York, the Los Angeles Museum of far end of the hallway reveals a glimpse Contemporary Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, of Raymond Pettibon’s extraordinary the site-specific mural was covered with studs and drywall 1998 site-specific mural, which has been to preserve it. The removal of a small section of wall at the hidden under drywall for 17 years. far end of the hallway reveals the eyes of a fielder 17 years in waiting. The museum offices are activated as one of three sites for the presentation of Felix Gonzales-Torres’s 1991 work, “Untitled” (Revenge). Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Untitled” (Revenge), 1991 PROGRAMS Light blue candies individually wrapped in cellophane, LET US endless supply Ideal weight: 325 lbs. CELEBRATE Overall dimensions vary with installation WHILE YOUTH Courtesy Barbara and Howard Morse, New York LINGERS With special thanks to the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation AND IDEAS FLOW A R C H I V E S "Untitled" (Revenge) is installed within the offices of the 1915–2015 Renaissance Society. For more information, please see the Wieboldt Hall section.
NOVEMBER 20 DECEMBER 3 6 11 2015
THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Let Us Celebrate… Toggle Variable Speed, featuring Blondes Friday, November 20, 6–10pm Friday, December 11, 7pm Midway Studios, Gray Center Lab and Great Hall Logan Center for the Arts, Screening Room 915 East 60th Street Join us to mark the exhibition opening with a reception and performance by Chicago post-punk quartet Negative The first film screened by the Renaissance Society in 1931, Scanner. Aside from a band name that suggests a relatively Fernand Léger’s Ballet Mécanique (1924) hypnotically recent archival tool, the group is equipped to look forward explores the Modern, mechanical age with equal parts while making good and loud on a rich countercultural grace and terror. This program of moving image work tradition. They perform at 9pm. includes the performance of a newly commissioned score for Léger’s masterpiece by Brooklyn-based duo Blondes, and Ordnance Operations: War Art at the Renaissance Society a selection of titles previously screened at the Renaissance Thursday, December 3, 6pm Society that embody the paranoia of the digital revolution Midway Studios, Great Hall of the 1980s, when the rise of video cameras and editing software commingled with the emergence of the pop- Art historian Maggie Taft lectures on the 1942 cultural machine, gender studies, and mediated reality. Renaissance Society exhibition War Art, curated by László Moholy-Nagy, discussing how World War II transformed WHPK 88.5 FM Chicago Community Radio Chicago’s art scene and how artists and curators imagined November 14–December 20 and articulated the relationship between art and war. A series of historical Renaissance Society radio spots Exhibition walk-through announcing exhibitions and events will be read live on the Sunday, December 6, 1pm airwaves at spontaneous intervals during the run of the Midway Studios, Gray Center Lab exhibition. WHPK 88.5FM is a non-profit community radio station of the University of Chicago, broadcasting to Curator Jordan Stein leads a tour of the exhibition across Hyde Park and the south side of Chicago for over 50 years. all four sites, beginning at the Gray Center Lab. A Note on Sources
The bulk of archival materials from the first fifty years come from the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art, Washington, DC, the nation’s preeminent research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in America. Founding documents come from the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago. Materials after 1965 are borrowed from the present home of the Renaissance Society, where the archive is available for viewing by appointment.
Back cover: Ree Morton Let Us Celebrate While Youth Lingers and Ideas Flow, 1975 Paint on canvas, celastic, wood 96 × 72 × 6 inches (c) Estate of Ree Morton THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY at the University of Chicago 5811 South Ellis Avenue 773 702 8670 Cobb Hall, 4th Floor [email protected] Chicago, Illinois 60637 renaissancesociety.org